Alec Baldwin apologizes for Twitter rant

Jun. 29, 2013
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Actor Alec Baldwin arrives for actor James Gandolfini's funeral at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on June 27, 2013 in New York City. The actor is livid that his wife is accused of Tweeting during the funeral. / Andrew Burton Getty Images

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

"My ill-advised attack on George Stark of the Daily Mail had absolutely nothing to do with issues of anyone's sexual orientation. My anger was directed at Mr. Stark for blatantly lying and disseminating libelous information about my wife and her conduct at our friend's funeral service. As someone who fights against homophobia, I apologize.

I have worked, periodically, with numerous marriage equality organizations, especially over the past couple of years, to achieve the very rights that gay couples are earning by recent court decisions. I would not advocate violence against someone for being gay and I hope that my friends at GLAAD and the gay community understand that my attack on Mr. Stark in no way was the result of homophobia.

Many Thanks, Alec Baldwin."

GLAAD's VP of communications, Rich Ferraro, seems satisfied:

"Alec Baldwin is making it clear that the intent behind his tweets does not excuse his language, especially at a time when there were 11 incidents of violence against gay men in New York City just last month. As we all work to end such senseless acts of violence, allies like Baldwin are right to use these moments to reinforce support for the community and LGBT equality."

Update: The feverish analysis of the case of Baldwin vs. the Daily Mail continues. Apparently, there's an issue of time zones. Could the reporter have been reading the Tweets incorrectly?

Earlier, his wife, whose account remains active, Tweeted that she "would like a real apology."

To recap: Last night, a war of words took place on Twitter, thanks to Alec Baldwin's attack against the Daily Mail, which ran a story alleging that Baldwin's pregnant spouse, Hilaria, was Tweeting during James Gandolfini's funeral Thursday.

The reporter posted the time stamps on her Tweets, which were promotional, and not exactly appropriate when Gandolfini's nearest and dearest were paying their respects to him.

Baldwin, not known for his calm and cool demeanor, or his restraint, unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse against the reporter of the story, whose byline was no longer on the online piece.

The least nasty one: "My wife and I attend a funeral to pay our respects to an old friend, and some toxic Brit writes this (expletive) trash."

And then he Tweeted: "My wife DID NOT use her phone, in any capacity, at our friends funeral."

He added: "Good luck to all of you who know the truth."

His pregnant wife posted the following: "I don't know what hurts more: people randomly and maliciously writing lies about you, or the people who actually believe them."

Of course, as we all know, you can pre-schedule Tweets to post automatically. So there's absolutely no proof that Mrs. Baldwin was doing anything untoward at the funeral. But hey, that didn't stop a salacious story.

It was all clearly upsetting for Baldwin, who also posted the following: "How much of this (expletive) are people supposed to take? With these (expletive) blatant lies EVERY DAY."

George Stark, the reporter whose byline was removed from the story, hadn't replied via Twitter as of Thursday night.

And it now appears that Baldwin shut down his own Twitter account, @ABFalecbaldwin, after announcing that he'd fired his publicist.